Pages

Germany and Austria said Saturday they are sending some 700 more troops to Kosovo to help prevent unrest in the north of the breakaway province ahead of elections in neighboring Serbia on May 6.

Germany's defense ministry said 550 soldiers would be deployed at the request of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force, while Austria's defense ministry said 150 troops would join the Kosovo Operational Reserve Force.

The European Union's rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, for its part said Friday it had increased its presence in northern Kosovo in recent weeks with the NATO-led peacekeeping mission raising the number of patrols.

Minority Serbs in the northern part of majority ethnic-Albanian Kosovo intend to take part in Serbia's general elections, but the government in Pristina, the capital of ethnic-Albanian Kosovo, considers this as unacceptable and has threatened to use "all legal force"...